Once More
by midnight-blue
Summary: She left believing she was nothing. And he came believing she was his.


Title: Once More 

Author: Midnight Blue (Kristin) 

Disclaimer: Hank owns them. I wish I did, but I don't! 

Rating: PG 

Summary: She left believing she was nothing. And he came believing she was his. 

A/N: Thanks to D who helped me pick the title and stopped me from just putting this in the recycle bin. Big thanks to Maple Street, the best forum ever. This one's for Dan. 

* 

I met a man once. It's seems obscure now, as the years have passed. Perhaps the story's old and trite and you'll listen with an unfocused attention because I'm old and I used to be young once and maybe there could be something interesting about what I have to say. 

I met a man. 

In New York, that little detail seems slightly obvious, but I feel the need to clarify this because he wasn't just any man. If he was, this story would've been forgotten and the ending, most of all, would've blown away with the ashes of the ghosts and the dead he buried just as long ago. 

You see, you forget many things with each passing year. It changes, sometimes; one year, you'll forget your mother's birthday, the next year, your father's. Sometimes you'll forget who gave you that special birthday card you tucked away in the box you keep in your closet; other years, you'll remember with vivid clarity the exact moment that envelope touched your hand and the way you smiled up at that person who, even now, still haunts your dreams as he or she floats above the realm of the living. 

So sometimes you remember and sometimes you forget. It's a give and take, even a turn of chance, but deep down, those memories are always there. All the important ones. All the names and faces that meant something remain where they've always been. You just have to look harder on certain days. It gets to be that way when your skin wrinkles and your hair fades to white. 

But then, there are days and moments you remember starkly; they seem to splash against the imprint of your brain like an angry watercolor or a gentle sketch. 

I remember the day he first walked in. 

It was years ago, of course, when I used to work in that little coffee shop next to that little bookstore on that street I can't remember. 

He wore that suit all men wear when they're older and successful and he wore it with pride. But he carried a burden with him, beneath his suit, between his heart and his head, beneath the eyes that blurred his lies and his truths and I wanted to know him. 

Jack Malone. 

So he would come once, even twice a week on different days and different times, but always on my shifts and when he looked at me, at anyone, you started to get the feeling that maybe you were worth something. 

He just had that look. 

Of age and maturity, slightly rough around the edges, with a softness underneath I grew to know. What most people didn't realize, what you could never see on the surface, was that beneath this finely constructed facade he had built around himself, Jack Malone was simply a man in love. A man capable of the deepest, most passionate love imaginable. 

At first, naively, I thought that love was reserved for the woman bounded to the ring painfully wrapped around his finger. 

But then I met Samantha Spade. 

It clicked in my mind the first time I saw them together. I remember that day clearly as well. Maybe because I liked him and I liked her and I always knew there was still good in the world if they existed. Maybe because they talked to me like I was real and came often enough where I got to know who they really were. 

Mostly, I think, I liked the way they walked in together, and had this light around them that was both tragic and beautiful. I liked the way they danced together with their eyes and their smiles were shy and hesitant as though they wanted to be happy but never truly could. 

I liked the way they loved each other. 

I hated the way they never could. 

I learned this later, of course, that his wife, linked to him by marriage vows and that breakable piece of metal that shouldn't truly bind anyone who isn't in love, was still a part of his life. But not the important part. 

No one could ever convince me otherwise. 

And then, as it happens, they stopped coming as much as they used to. For a little while, they stopped coming at all. In that interlude, I often thought of them, compared them to couples I saw in passing on my way home from work, on the little walks I'd take through Central Park. It seemed none of them ever measured up. I don't know why, really. Maybe Jack and Samantha didn't express their love as blatantly as some couples. But maybe, because they didn't have to, because it was a love that, though unspoken, and maybe even unknown for a time, they were truly linked beyond the physical constraints and bonded, instead, with a deep, emotional tie. 

Then it happened. 

I hadn't ever known the deeper aspects of their work, only that they worked on finding missing people. 

Then Barry Mashburn walked into that little bookstore down the street, the one I went into on my weekends off in search of refuge and entertainment and maybe a little bit of something I haven't yet figured out and haven't yet found. I always associated that bookstore with an untainted purity. Now, I only see her ghost when I walk by. 

I heard about it on the news and saw her the day after it happened. Already, there were various get-well cards and flowers and various other sentiments all wishing a speedy recovery. 

I looked around for a sign that Jack had been there and, puzzled, found none. 

She was pale and marred with violence and bloodshed and I wept for the last bit of innocence she lost that night and the loneliness she held in her eyes as she looked at me. Because she didn't know if he would ever come and her final darkness brought with it the belief that he had left her casually and with no reservation and her presence in his life had been a mere fling. She left believing she was nothing. 

And he came believing she was his. 

When she closed her eyes as a sad smile looked up at me, she muttered a goodbye, remembered my name, and I wondered if I should take this time to get her a card myself. 

It happened then that I realized her last tear had been shed, before me. I had seen it form over the iris, above the faded blue, and gather strength as it traveled slowly down her cheek, scarring each piece of skin that he had kissed once when she used to be his, erasing all memory of that fact, and lying to her with its poison, stinging as it trailed continuously down until it finally dropped off and hit the floor with a silence I'll always remember. 

And as it marked the tile with its empty fragment, the tear reminded her that as she passed into darkness, he loved her no more. 

He came and whispered the truth to her after that same darkness had already taken her away and he too cried, over her, loving her as he always had. 

I watched from outside, wanting to promise something, wanting to make it right. It could never be. 

I thought, with a bitter remembrance, that all things happen for a reason. I liked to say it in good times, I liked to say it when giving friends advice and support, when I thought it sounded good and made things, somehow, okay. It made things worse now. 

How could her death have meant anything? How could it have served any purpose? 

It seemed useless and wasteful and as a human being left that quiet hospital room that night so long ago, with his soft sobs beckoning her back to him, I felt dirty and guilty and asked a deity that never answered back why I still breathed just as she longer did. 

It's been so long but I remember that night down to the last detail. 

When he finally exited, I knew he would never be free of this; that another pain had been added to his scarred heart. 

I knew in that moment that she would never leave him; that her face would smile at him from the doorway of his office, frown across the conference table, laugh beside the hot dog vendor, read from the newspaper over a cup of coffee, wait for him in the bookstore, and love him in the place where he would breathe; needing her, wanting her, never knowing her again until the darkness would come to take him. 

So the years have passed, as you can see. I still think of him and even her, wondering where their story ends. 

He sees her often, I think, because the flowers never stay long enough to die. He comes to change them just before they wilt, because, I suppose, there's death enough here already. I find myself in this place today because it's the anniversary. It's strange to look at him, worn and so changed from that man I once knew. It's strange to see my own hands, weathered and old, and still unfamiliar, even now. 

I read her tombstone from my vantage point. It's comforting in its simplicity and I still wonder who picked it out. Her name, her birth, and a simple 'Beloved' written plainly underneath are all that mark her final resting place. It seems so strange, after all this time, to stand here and think of her face, so vividly alive in my memory, as nothing but a hollow shell beneath this earth. 

She'll always be young and beautiful just as we, we two final mourners, stand solemnly marked with age and decay as our own bodies prepare to kick us out. 

He shakily places a rose on the grass and I notice the ring once emotionlessly gracing his finger is no longer there. I think it's been gone for quite some time. 

I turn to leave as the sun begins to set and catch his whisper upon the wind. 

"I told you I'd be back soon, sweetheart." 

I don't know what it means, and maybe this will be the last time I see his lonely face, but whatever this quiet day brings, I'll remember that I met a man once who loved a woman, who, in turn, loved him, and maybe, soon, they can love each other again...once more. 

* 

[ end ] 


End file.
